Crow walk cycle V6 & V7

I RETURN. WITH MORE BIRDS. Are you bored of me yet?! :D

After looking at the reference video I posted at the end of the last entry, I made some adjustments to the cycle...

Version 6

I've not yet touched the legs, all I've done is mess with the head a little bit. I think it looks alright, and in terms of the motion I think it could work. Part of the reason I gave up with this one was because of a slight keyframe problem — I don't know why, but I could not get it to loop seamlessly. You'll notice towards the end that the head bobs upwards much faster than it did previously — despite the fact that the start and end points are exactly the same there's a discrepancy with the keyframes somewhere that I simply cannot fix.

Even if I could fix it, though, I'm still not sure on it. It's still not right, to me, and I think it's to do with the fact that she's walking on the spot.  With the way that birds move, unless the crow is moving across the screen I'ms going to have one hell of a time trying to get the bobbing of the head to work. I've also been having concerns that simply tweening the walk cycle across the screen would look weak — if I were to animate her moving across the screen by hand, lining up the feet each time, I think it would ensure a much nicer and more lifelike result. So I just decided to bite the bullet and do it.

Version 7

It's not quite finished at this stage and it's a little difficult to watch, but I think that you can already see that the result is much, much better.

It has flagged up some problems with the animation, though — like I suspected the feet aren't really working properly. As she steps forward the back leg starts to slide forward before it's even lifted off the ground. If I want to keep the foot roll in there, I'll need to manually move it back to ensure it doesn't move until it's lifted off the ground. Alternatively I could attempt flattening out the foot roll and just have it lift straight off the ground, which may serve to give the crow that ungainly, clumsy sort of look!

I'll be back with another massive post fairly soon.